A MISSING dog was reunited with its owner with the help of more than 400 residents.

Murphy, a black labrador, went missing on Friday afternoon while his owner, Lisa Beaumont, was out running.

After realising Murphy was missing, Ms Beaumont turned to Facebook for help – in particular a group called Tilly’s Angels, which helps to find lost dogs in the Southend area.

Ed Slocombe, from Leasway, Chalkwell, a dog trainer at obedience school, K9 solutions, which is one of the groups publicising and co-ordinating the searches, said: “An immediate search was organised. Despite being spotted by Network Rail engineers on the tracks at Leigh, there were no more sightings that day.

“Helpers worked late into the night and early the next day putting out posters and searching the marshland of Hadleigh, Leigh and Benfleet.”

Two days later, and with Murphy still missing, despite the efforts of hundreds of volunteers, a dedicated Facebook page was set up to help find him.

Mr Slocombe said: “It was on that Sunday when I was out with my two dogs, Cocoa and Beans. Although there had been a potential sighting at the Olympic mountain bike track, in Hadleigh earlier that morning, I decided to walk along the C2C track from Two Tree Island towards Benfleet.

“While walking I noticed Beans do his customary wiggle bottom greeting, despite there being no one else around.”

Mr Slocombe retraced his steps to investigate the area, and suddenly realised that Murphy was there, concealed by bushes.

After time clearing the bushes, stretching the wire fencing and digging a hole, Mr Slocombe was able to get Murphy out.

The 37-year-old added: “An hour later, Murphy was reunited with his owners as well as their entire family, neighbours, friends and a crowd of well-wishers, all of whom had heard via the Facebook group that Murphy had been found."

The Facebook group, Tilly’s Angels, are now trying to raise funds to help them search for lost dogs, visit justgiving.com/crowdfunding/Tillys-angels